6 posts tagged “centro”
Metaview - author of very popular PalmOS software titles, such as 2playme, 2launchme, 2cool4you, UAE, togglepivate, etc. - has released another groundbreaking utility for tourists and photo blogger as well as for people who seek for geocaches and use their PalmOS device for navigating purposes. 2trackme allows for everything related to geopositioning and the PUGcast team love it!
This is the last barrier in mobile computing, to seek for whatever is within distance, to find a cache near you, to take photos incuding the exact GPS coordinates, to have a full featured map including wikipedia access finding sights, to log tracks you walked in unknown terrain and to simply find a way between to points.
Due to the fact that the PalmOS smartphone knows your exact geoposition (e.g. by connecting to a BT GPS mouse), so many things are possible and this makes a perfect travel companion.
2trackme refers to Openstreetmap and thus, it is is completely free but could also be not 100 percent complete or even existant if nowbody was where you currently are before. Because you are tracking your ways, it is of great help, if you could upload your streets later on in order to help to improve the openstreetmap material also for others.
2TrackMe 1.0 offers a rich map view with maps from the OpenStreetMap project which can be fetched online when needed or stored offline on the memory card. It displays wikipedia entries close to the current location, can call geocaching.com with your current position and displays the content (GeoCaches) of the LOC file, which you can download from there.
Using the services offered around the OpenStreetMap project you can use 2TrackMe to search for any location registered in the OSM database (GPS->Guess Position) and get a route between 2 points (View->Routing).
On the main view of 2TrackMe you have the possibility to start capturing the GPS data as NMEA log on your memory card. Use this to map missing parts inside the OSM project. At the moment, you will need to convert from NMEA into GPX Track format using any of the online or offline GPS converter tools.
Using 2TrackMe you can create geo-tagged pictures. Just open the menu and select Options->Take Picture.
If you are in the mountains and don’t trust the altitude reported from your GPS device, ask the NASA for the ground altitude they have stored for your current location: GPS->Ground Alt.
If you don’t have a GPS device with you but using a GSM-Centro device, try to guess your position using your current GSM cell info: GPS->Guess Position.
If your current area is rather bad covered from OSM, open Google Maps for Palm centered on your current position: View->To Google Maps.
I always wanted to switch my Treo automatically to quite anything possible to get the most out of it and improve comfort.
For years I am addicted to 2playme, a software which Henk (a Berlin-based programmer of 2launchme, 2cool4you, nexave keyguard, toggleprivate, etc.) started just to have an alarm clock playing his favorite MP3's in the morning.
Today, 2playme by far can do more as just playing MP3's and thus, I feel it's time for a quite full featured review showing my programmed event list examplarily to the left.
What I am doing with 2playme is some background activities such as adjusting the screen's brightness in accordance to time (morning, afternoon, night), muting the Treo during lunch, presenting the daily schedule, switching networks in depandency of whether I am at home or on-the-go, switching SIM cards (I have a Dual-SIM-Adapter as explaned here) for calling on low costs and receiving SMS as well as surfing the net on the data plan SIM and switching the phone completely off over night.
All in all, this ends up in a complex switching scenario, which I would usually do manually on a daily basis. So why not having the Treo do the job for you? This is all possible by Henk's gorgeous tool called 2playme.
The event list needs some more explanations on what exactly is going on. I have quite similar schedule every working day and thus, it's perfect for programming.
The phone is switched off during sleeping hours (I am not willing to accept phone
calls during my recreation phase) and thus everything starts with switching
the Treo on at 7:15 a.m. From that time on, I am accepting phone calls.
But even before that, at 7 a.m., I am switching the Treo's network connection to my home's Bluetooth Access Point, because 4cast calls weather updates over my broadband network and Quicknews downloads RSS feeds and podcasts. I could also do this completely over the cellular network, because I have a data plan, but this would be more slowly and also count against my 1GB quota and so I keep big downloads fast and cheap at home via DSL broadband.
Due to the fact that I am using a Dual-SIM-Adaptor within the Treo, my preferred SIM card is the data plan SIM.
In order to receive text messages (from the night), I firstly switch to the phone SIM for 15 minutes to also allow those SMS to drop in and after that switch to the data plan SIM. Text messages are nicely collected altogether in the Treo's Messaging application.
During the ride to work, I let the Treo regularly present the schedule in order to prepare the day and see meetings at work as well as appointments with friends in the evening. One may ask why I call the scheduler TMP every 5 minutes. The reason is that some programs interact in the background and start applications and present message windows. Thus, I am calling TMP again to have it quite often in view, when I switch on the device.
During the ride, I am switching from my home's Bluetooth Access Point to the data plan SIM card to allow Chatteremail to receive emails also on-the-go.
I am in the office about 9 a.m. o'clock. Starting the office PC and getting ready for the working day, I place the Treo in it's the desktop cradle. At 9:15 a.m. the first hotsync is initiated by the Treo to synchronize with the enterprise calendar, receiving meetings and new contacts.
During lunch break the Treo automatically mutes completely from 12 a.m. to 1 p.m., because this is another recreation phase for me - not thinking about job issues. It does not switches the phone off completely, but at least helps me not to fall off the chair during lunch in case a call drops in. Muting the Treo via 2playme is a tricky thing, because Henk found a way of silencing the Treo no other application regognizes it. This means that, if the Treo's ringer switch is set to ring, the system signal is that the Treo should ring, but it does not, because of 2plame. This isn't really important, except for one particular scenario: In case you have set the system signals to only vibrate in case the ringer switch is switched off, but you are actually muting by 2playme, the system signales and all applications simply do not vibrate, because they believe the ringer switch to be on. You won't be alerted in any case and might miss an important phone call or alert. So, you should be aware of this feature and never forget to set sound again to normal, which I do right after the lunch break at 1 p.m.
In the afternoon, I allow the phone SIM to receive text messages again by switching to this particular SIM for 15 minutes.In order not to be interrupted by the Treo phone switching melody during work or ride home, the Treo is muted again during switching. To get alerted about new text messages, I turn on sound right after the switching moment.
At 8:30 p.m. the Treo dimms the display for night reading (or else it would be too bright for my eyes).
From 10:30 p.m. on I don't want to get interrupted by phone calls (while being in bed and reading some ebooks or so), although I keep the phone's connection still open to receive calls. Being in bed, the Treo dimms automatically down to a feasable brightness for reading at 10:31 p.m.
Assuming that I am almost sleeping 0:00, the Treo switches off and let me enjoy my dreams...
2playme allows alarms to be active only on certain weeks, which can be defined per every single alarm. Thus, one can have only the first week a month to activate certain events or have A/B weekly alarms, etc.
In addition, the program is able to save the complete event list on the external memory card. Thus, it is very handy to install the event list on many PalmOS devices and to maintain it easily.
For me, 2playme is the most essential must-have-tool for PalmOS devices - not only Treos.
I really like the SIM switching feature. Thus, I can switch explicitly between more SIM cards, which works brilliantly.
We saw some blurred images floating around the web for the last couple of days and now we officially know what was going on with regular Treos and Centros demoing webOS. In fact everyone can have kinda webOS on the PalmOS device, including PalmTX, Treo range, Centros. etc.
This mindblowing piece of software is a new full featured launcher from the brilliant guys at Tealpoint and is called TealOS. Of course, this does not allow to run Palm's newest operating system webOS on regular PalmOS devices, but it brings Palm's magic newness to existing hardware.
More than just a visual skin, TealOS is a multi-functional application launcher that gives your time-honored handheld the exciting look and feel of the newest devices. Providing a powerful and intuitive way to organize your activities and work flow, it runs under PalmOS but simulates the card-based interface of WebOS on the new Palm Pre. TealOS comes complete with support for thumbnail image cards, a translucent applications screen, customizable background images, and even a popup wave launcher. While keeping your existing phone and applications, it's the next best thing to a brand new phone.
It is possible to have multiuple cards on the desktop and even scroll through them very smoothly. Unused applications, which one want to close and remove from the cards can be thrown away by a swipe to the top of the screen. Of course, the wave launcher can be started from within any open application to allow instant access to pre-defined programs by a long tap at the bottom of the screen.
It basically replaces the system launcher and adds some background functionality to PalmOS 5. Left applications are stored with a snapshot to cards, which can be scrolled horizontally over the desktop by a single finger swipe. Tealpoint even visualized a long finger press with a rounded white blurred indicator, pretty much as seen in Palm's webOS demo.
Cards can be re-arranged by a swipe again using a nice translucency effect. A quick launch bar beneath the cards on the desktop is also available to quickly access predefined applications. Lastly, one can make use of a kinda regular launcher with scrolling effect while swiping up and down, whereas swiping sideways allow to change categories.
The background of this implementation of Palm's newness goes back to a tricky find from Alex Pruss within PalmOS being able to freeze the current application and to switch to another one, coming back to any time. He called this Accessorizer (released as Freeware) in 2008 and also Henk Jonas from Metaviewsoft made use of it in some of his applications.
The new launcher is so much fun to run on any PalmOS 5 device and costs 14.95 USD at Tealpoint.
For a full demo of TealOS, please see the following demo.
Das neue Scanner-Prinzip, den PUGcast mit sog. QR-Codes (QR = quick response) zu spicken und dadurch das sofortige Herunterladen und Streamen des PUGcast zu ermöglichen, kommt scheinbar bei der Mehrheit unserer Hörer gut an.
Der Vorteil ist nicht nur, dass der Podcast sofort aufgerufen werden kann, sondern auch, dass Scanner auf sehr vielen Platformen verfügbar ist. So koennen iPhones, Blackberries, Treos, PalmOS, Windows Mobile und Symbian-Geräte universell darauf zugreifen. Ich empfehle hier den Beetagg-Scanner, welcher zwar in erster Linie fuer Beetaggs gedacht ist, aber auch QR-Codes scannen und interpretieren kann.
Das Scannen selbst ist sehr einfach. Man braucht sich lediglich den für sein Smartphone geeigneten Scanner herunterladen und zielt "irgendwie" relativ mittig auf den QR-Code. Der Rest geschieht i.d.R. automatisch und man wird nach einem Erkennungs-Popup automatisch in die zu verarbeitende Applikation weitergeleitet. Das kann z.B. ein Browser oder Media-Player sein und ist je nach Gerät recht unterschiedlicher Natur.
Selbst aus winkeligen Perspektiven und unterschiedlichen Entfernungen ist durchaus eine fehlerfreie Erkennen des QR-Codes möglich, was einige Bildschirmfotos unserer Hörer dokumentieren.
Das folgende Bild zeigt den QR-Code auf einem heimischen Fernseher, auf welchem dieser Blog dargestellt wurde.
Durch die grosse Darstellung kann man prima auch von der Couch aus den Code scannen und direkt auf z.B. der SD-Karte im Treo speichern.
Allerdings gibt es auch ein paar Randbedinungen, die beachtet werden sollten.
(A) Zunächst einmal sollte die Auflösung des Bildschirmes nicht allzu hoch im Vergleich zu seinen physikalischen Dimensionen sein, da ansonsten der eigentliche QR-Code dann nämlich relativ klein (und evtl. verschwommen) abgebildet wird. Je kleiner der Code ist, desto schwieriger ist er vom Scanner zu erfassen. Auch, wenn es technisch moeglich ist, sollten Bildschirme, welche eine physiklische Bildschirmgroesse einer plausibelen von 1024x768 nicht bei 1280x1024 betrieben werden. Das ist weder gut für das menschliche Auge, noch für den Scanner.
(B) Offenbar macht ein Scannen von Röhrenmonitoren (CRT's) in Verbindung mit der im Smartphone verbauten Kamera Probleme, da sich die Bildwiederholfrequenz des Monitors mit der Aufrischungsrate der Kamera nicht immer verträgt. So berichtet OWL (Gründer und Leiter des weltberühmten Compuseums und Experte über mehrere hundert PDA's verschiedenster Hersteller und Betriebssystemen), dass er mit seinem Monitor Schwierigkeiten beim Erfassen des Codes hat. Abhilfe schafft hier z.B. das Scannen von einem LCD oder das Anpassen der Auflösung sowie Bildwiederholfrequenz.
Smartphones are very popular among buyers but most of them do not neccessarily know how powerful they really are. Unleashing the power of your smartphone in regards of modern communication is one thing I would like to explain next.
There are many ways of staying in contact with friends, collaboration partners, customers, etc. On a personal basis, it is very common to exchange SMS from any GSM/UMTS cell phone. For more than a "hello" or "meet you at 7 tonight" there is MMS, which allows for picture (e.g. snapshot), audio (e.g. voice mail) or video (e.g. holiday greeting) attachment.
But those two methods doesn't really take communication to a next level. Addressing the business world, people think about emailing and more concrete email in realtime, most often being referred to as push mail. Push mail means, that there is no user invention needed to receive emails. Being always-on, they are pushed automatically from the mail account directly to the user's mobile device (smartphone).
When asked about push mail, most users think about a so-called Blackberry from the Canadian IT manufacturer RIM, which is said to have defined a quasi standard in realtime emailing. Using a Blackberry device require a certain enterprise infrastructure and also involve regular fees for the service. In addition to that, all emails are in transit over RIM's infrastructure and thus some companies now a days decided against it due to reasons of industrial espionage.
All in all, Blackberries are for the business world, and most likely not for peronsal use.
Although, there are many individuals who want to receive their private emails instantly, as well. The following explanations are for those, who own one of the popular smartphones (e.g. PalmOS Treo or Centro, Windows Mobile devices and literally any other smartphone as well) and an IMAP email account which supports the so-called idle command. Traditional mobile mail clients may poll for new mail at frequent intervals, with or without downloading the mail to the client, thus providing a similar user experience as push e-mail. IMAP in fact allows many notifications to be sent at any time, but not message data. The IDLE command is often used to signal the ability of a client to process notifications sent outside of a command running, which effectively provides a user experience identical to push.
To set up a realtime emailing system is very easy. Assume you have a Googlemail account, you are ready to go.
The preferred push mail client for a Palm Treo/Centro is Chattermail, which - to my knowldege - is the best email solution on the market today. Marc Blank started development of the email client some years ago and the gained so much knowledge in IMAP push emailing that his company was accquired by Palm in 2007. My friend Alan Grassia first posted some details along with rumors about it in the first quarter 2007. It later pointed out that he was right, assuming that Palm wants to prepare themselves for a new compelling product offering true push email to the users. Marc's knowledge about emailing and IMAP idle will play an important role within Palm's new upcoming linux operating system in 2009, code-named NOVA.
Setting up Chattermail to connect to the Googlemail account is easily done and once you have a data plan for your cellular phone you should establish a connection once and let it go. Every single email dropping into your Googlemail inbox is now instantly being transferred to the smartphone and can be instantly answered.
That's the whole story, it's that easy.
To be a bit more advanced on
mailing, there are many thinks which can be optimized during the mail
transit, e.g. receiving emails only from particular senders (most
important ones), sorting out newsletters which one do not necessarily
need on-the-go, filtering spam, which is unwanted anways, retrieve
mails from several mail accounts, etc.
I have set my personal
mailing system almost without any costs (e.g. free service providers),
while I have reduced myself and my mail usage on-the-move to the most
essential and important one. Also, considering that I may be most
likely on the road, incoming messages should be important to know and
alerting should be reduced a miminum (concentrate on essentials).
I, for one, have decided on the following procedures:
(A) pure information exchange is mainly held in plain text emails about approx. 12 kbyte in size
(B) rejection of emails larger than 100 kbyte (due to my personal analysis, mails over 100k does not only contain pure information, but presentation slides, pictures, attachments, etc.). Notification of large emails instead to stay informed
(C) no forwarding of newsletters, ebay search notifiations, etc.
(D) All mails are spam filtered prior to forwarding to the IMAP idle push email account (this again reduces the amount of emails significantly)
As for spam detection, I can recommend spamfence by ELEVEN, which is a world-class spam detection service and free for private use. It is important to understand that ELEVEN does not delete any spam emails, but is being understood as accurate mail classifier. Sorting and deletion of classified emails is up to the user. For that purpose, ELEVEN allow for X-header or subject change in order to indicate the email's classification. Newsletters, for instance, are classified as "bulk", spam emails as "spam", and clean emails as "clean". There are about two dozen of different classes which ELEVEN associate emails with. Therefore, the diagram above shows a box named "Mail Collector & Attachment Removal Engine". Here, ham (clean) from spam emails are sorted and only the good emails are forwarded for push email. Moreover, I here divide large from regular sized emails. Mail of sizes below 100 kbyte are straight forwarded to the push email account, whereas mails larger than 100 kbytes are only notified. This, of course, is very much dependant to my personal mail analysis, but I identidied typical personal emails at approx. 12 kbytes (which is about a few paragraphs of text), some containing a small photo attached (either of a smartphone or resized for mail delivery) at 60 kbytes to 100 kbytes and all other (powerpoint presentations, high resolution pictures, Archives, etc.) at far more than 100 kbytes in size. Latter ones are no material for processing on-the-go, because a 8 MB RAW image from a friend of mine if nothing I would love to see on the smartphones screen. Also, a 12 MB powerpoint presentation can neither be openend nor processed by a smartphone and files within an archive are most likely for a desktop PC.
Thus, notification in order to keep track of my emails is absolutely sufficient in this regards. Thus, I have a complete overview and am able to send reminders out that I am still waiting for files to be send - and I keep my inbox slim.
Chattermail is the only thing one need to pay for at costs of 39.95 USD, but it is worth every cent.
The good thing with Chatter is, that it does not only receive emails in realtime, but also allows to retrieve emails from serveral email accounts, thus staying connected to a number of mailboxes and to send emails making use of different SMTP profiles. Thus, one can receive emails from a different mail account (e.g. a separate push email account at fastmail) and send the answer via the original mail account at which the sender has send the email to. The sender then does not even recognize that one has not answered from the desktop PC at home, but from within Chatteremail on-the-go.
The whole email transmission chain works so mindblowing fast, that instant mail communication is so easy and mails are answered wihtin minutes - mostly for the sender's suprise. In my eyes, this is a much cheaper scenario, more flexible, highly configurable and safe (because independant and user controlled) compared to any Blackberry solution.
This is the elegant way of modern communication.
Lastly, I would like to highlight that this model does not strongly require the user to have a cost intensive data plan, which are mostly affordable in Northern America, but not necessarily in other parts of the world, e.g. Europe and/or Asia.
Latest rumors over at the palmaddicts towers say, that there is a Centro 2 being announced soon by Palm.
The shown screenhot of Palm's website indicate that there would be different colours available.
However, as programmer and journalist Tam Hanna pointed out in his blog , it seems to be a photoshopped hoax. Thus, nothin real. No wonder, because the Treo/Centro experience is based on a smartphone with keyboard and moreover one-hand-operation.
On the contrary, it is interesting to see, that there might by Asian copies of the Centro design around running on Windows Mobile.
